Madden NFL 2004

"While some changes are good, a couple points make me want to throw yellow flags"

I really do like the Madden NFL series. It is the definitive football series, and it is constantly seeking to improve itself. This year's version is no different, with various tweaks and alterations.

The graphic and sound design of the game is very good. The players and coaches look less and less pixilated; I wish the halftime entertainment was less blocky. And quite frankly, I found it to be very pointless in the end. The sound is very good, although if you do decide that Al Michaels and Madden are too annoying for you (and I did find Michaels sounded very uninspiring and annoying), I do wish you could hear the PA announcer say his typical funny things.

Music isn't too bad, although I liked the 2002 version better than either 2003 or this year's version. And some of the riffs were stolen from a couple of other EA sports games. You can select the ones you do like and the ones you want to turn off.

Several of the new gameplay mechanisms revolve around putting more life into the game. The biggest trumpeted change is the ''playmaker'' feature, which allows you to slightly alter a route, or emphasize one aspect over another instead of simply calling an audible and completely changing the original play. I did like this feature somewhat, and it took a bit of time to get use to. But I feel that there should have been more options given than what they were presented...for example, allowing the blocking back to block the opposite side, if you suspect a blitz to come from the weak side instead of the strong side. Overall, this is a fairly good feature.

Another really big feature which isn't as trumpeted is finally the ability to create one's own plays. The instructions and commands to create your own plays are very easy to do, and I found it very easy to create plays that I thought would look cool. Then I had to delete it when I found in practice they wouldn't work.

The other major change is in its Franchise mode. The Franchise mode consist of you selecting how many teams you want to play coach as...but now, there's an owner's section too. There, you can regulate everything prices you want to charge for season tickets and bratwurst & beer to team apparel and special giveaways. Naturally, you must keep in mind the bottom line in this owner's mode, not just the salary cap. It seem too SimCity like for my tastes, but it detracted slightly from the gameplay.

The minor other part of the Franchise mode that I didn't like was how it had changed how you play in Franchise mode as a team. Now there are options for training camp (something new from 2003 version) and pre-season, and I found them to be a bit useful, and perhaps entertaining. However, a lot of the practing ended up being more or less hand-eye coordination exercises than really figuring out how to position your player to better be able to make that tackle or catch.

The AI for the game is a lot better. Even on the rookie level, the AI will not let me get away as much as I could on previous years. The computer plays a bitter tougher this year, in my opinion.

They also finally did something I thought I'd never see in a Madden Game...make everything in the gameplay consistent. Now you can ask Madden for his opinion on defense as well as offense, and see how your team's defense and special teams will hopefully move before the game.

I don't like the fact that they've taken away the option of plays designed for a particular position, and its replacement the ''packages'' doesn't quite do it for me. The changes in the selection of plays that a particular package might entail doesn't vary that much, and I never have found it to really make a different in how my teams do. The added defensive schemes (4-6, Cover 2, Quarters) are nice to have.

One last thing I should mention is something completely new for all 2004 EA Sports games that will come out. It's the EA Sports Bio, which tracks how long you've played in any (and all) of the 2004 EA Sports games. A cumulative running total is logged, and basically the more you play, the more rewards and secrets are unlocked. I found it to be a bit unnecessary. So, you want to get all of the EA Sports games to really be able to unlock secrets in all of them. So what? The unlocked abilities you gain with each level is appropriate for the level, but I'm not convinced that they benefit me with all of the 2004 games that I might have. And you do have to have a Bio before you can save your Madden profile (which I also found annoying. Autosave is not automatically turned on when you get the game for the first time, otherwise, it's really hard to save a game and then get out without the X-Box asking you again if you want to save).

In summary, Madden 2004 is probably close to best version of the Madden games I have played. It's not as good as the 2001 or 2002 versions, but the playmaker and create your own plays abilities really enhances its longevity of the game. So overall, it's an 8.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/09/03